


Lucifer's Temptation in the Desert

by Ankhet



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), F/M, Gen, I wasn't exactly sober when I wrote this, Meta, i hope it makes sense, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 16:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20549099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ankhet/pseuds/Ankhet
Summary: Exploring how Season 4 was Lucifer's Temptation in the Desert - what his temptation was and which side he ultimately chose.





	Lucifer's Temptation in the Desert

**Author's Note:**

> I came across this [lovely gif](https://getinthehandbasket.tumblr.com/post/187482538112/mametupa-im-telling-you-maamnobody-is-what) on Tumblr from Season 4, where a character tells Chloe and Lucifer _"I'm telling you, ma'am...nobody is what they seem to be around here."_ Chloe side-eyes Lucifer, and he side-eyes her back, but does a double-take when he notices the look she's giving him.
> 
> I tag-commented the following:  
_#I didn’t notice that she’s side-eyeing him WAY more than he is at her#and he does a double take#UGH I wish this whole season hadn’t been so fucking emotionally hard on them all#AND ON US#Jesus fucking Christ Season 4 was Lucifer’s Temptation in the Desert#wasn’t it?_
> 
> The following essay is what came out of my head as I thought more and more about my own tags.

First off you should know I’m building off of themes explored in [this series of essays](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1414177) by [cjrae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CJ_R/pseuds/CJ_R). I highly recommend reading them if you like meta at all. They’re fucking brilliant.

But anyway. I stand by what I said above, that Season 4 is Lucifer’s Temptation in the Desert.

For anyone unaware, [the biblical story](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+4%3A1-11&version=NIV) of Jesus’ Temptation is basically this: Jesus went out into the desert and fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. During this time the devil (/cough) comes and tempts Jesus: “perform miracles,” he says, “prove you’re the son of God. You’re starving here, turn those rocks into bread. If you’re God’s only son, throw yourself off a cliff and surely God will save you - that’s what scripture says!” And finally, “bow down to me. Disavow God, do what I say, and I will give you anything you want.” And Jesus replies “nope. Not gonna do that. Fuck off.”

Now, one of the themes [cjrae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CJ_R/pseuds/CJ_R) explores in their essays is the idea that what Lucifer desires more than anything else in the world is _acceptance_. He wants Chloe’s acceptance. He wants his own acceptance. He even, even though he’ll never admit it out loud, wants his family’s acceptance - including that of his parents. 

One of the overarching themes of Season 4 is Lucifer struggling with himself - he’s his own angel and devil on his own shoulders, if you will. Does he strive forward through the pain to become the better person he desperately wants to be? To become a person he’ll like and can accept? Or does he go backwards, away from the pain but away from who he wants to be? Does he revert to the stereotype he hates but knows how to fall into? 

During the first three episodes of Season 4, Lucifer is his own tempter. He’s got this internal battle between pain and denial, between moving forward and moving backward, between Chloe and Hell. But, yknow, Lucifer’s started to get the hang of working out his own shit over the last few years, with the help of one lovely amazing Dr. Linda - and his friends calling him on his own shit. You know he’ll get there eventually.

But you know things are never that easy. Nope. Along comes Eve. We can add her voice to the “temptation” side of the equation. (We can talk another time about Eve as both the madonna and the magdalene, or about her ongoing theme of the temptress, or her emotional immaturity vs. Lucifer vs. Lucifer pre-therapy. Oh, and you should totally read those essays I mentioned. They talk about Eve and her journey too. But I digress.) But lo and behold, who has started to come around? Chloe. Once again we have an ‘angel’ and a ‘demon’ on Lucifer’s shoulders, only this time they’re external influences instead of internal.

So, on the one hand, we have Eve. She claims to accept Lucifer for who he is, all the while urging him to be someone he neither is (anymore) nor wants to be. He even tells her this, and she plows right through his objections as she urges him to be the Devil she once knew. The Devil she wants, not the Lucifer he wants to be. But, in some ways, being The Devil is easier for Lucifer. It’s what he knows. It’s how he’s lived for a very long time. It’s what everyone says he is, even when he knows in his heart that’s not who he is inside. (Sound familiar, anyone?) He may hate himself, but at least he’s good at it. Take that however you will.

On the other hand (shoulder?), we have Chloe. By the time Eve shows up, Chloe’s on the cusp of processing the truth about Lucifer - not just what he is, but who he is and how she feels about that. She’s not quite there yet, and it takes her a while to fully work through it, but she’s almost there. In episode 4, the episode Eve shows up, she’s even started cashing in on Lucifer’s favors, using some of his methods, etc. Just one episode later we get Ella’s lovely line, “You guys care about each other so much. What do you need her to do, take a bullet for you?” Annnnd then guess what she does only a few minutes later - that’s right, jumps on top of him to shield him from a bomb she was convinced was about to go off. So. There’s _that_.

In the end, we know what Lucifer chooses. And it’s the same narrative journey Jesus makes in the Bible - he’s sorely tempted, but chooses the way forward, keeping his integrity and his commitment to what he knows is correct. Lucifer rejects Eve and her temptation - first he tries to break up with her, but she refuses. So he acts out, trying to make her break up with him - but she says no. Finally he tells her “I don’t like who I am when I’m with you!” and outright rejects Eve - and what she stands for.

Unfortunately, that’s not a magic bullet, is it? If only breaking up a toxic relationship is what it took to heal your own sense of self-worth. But no, he’s still got to deal with his own self-acceptance, and we all know how good our Luci is at painful emotional work. Yeah. So now we have a Lucifer who can’t accept himself as he is, can’t forgive himself for who he was (and who he started to backslide into being), doesn’t have anyone who truly accepts him for who he feels he is - or so he thinks. He doesn’t even have the toxic and abusive conditional “acceptance” Eve dangled in front of him anymore.

By now it’s well established that Angels manifest their own state of being. If they feel angelic and worthy, they have lovely beautiful angel wings. If they feel like they don’t deserve those wings, they go away. And if they feel like they’re a monster no one could love, a monster whose only purpose is to inspire fear? Well that’s what they become. That’s what Lucifer becomes. And it’s not until Chloe knocks a chink in that rock-solid conviction that he’s the incarnation of a being who drives everyone away - not until she looks at him in full Devil form in “Save Lucifer” and doesn’t run screaming in terror - that Lucifer can start to accept it himself.

Which is not to say that Chloe saves Lucifer. I think Lucifer saves himself, but Chloe helps. His friends who stick with him help. Once Lucifer’s got that chink in this emotional iron maiden he’s made for himself, it’s easier for him to remember that he _can _be loved, because people already love him. That the idea that he’s unloveable, that no one can ever accept him where he’s at is false - because there’s objective proof in front of him of the opposite. 

Personally, one of the reasons this strikes a chord with me is because it directly reflects how depression lied to me and how I started crawling out of it: It told me I was alone and everyone lied to me. It had a pretty good grip until my best friend stuck around (showed me I wasn’t alone), and told me not only the nice things I wanted to hear, but some things maybe I didn’t either but were objectively the truth (that is, he never lied to me). And once that chink in the armor was there, once that little pinprick of light showed through to me I was able to poke more holes, to find the weak points in the iron maiden my depression had built around me and to corrode that self-made instrument of torture. Sound familiar with how Lucifer’s ‘human’ form came back once he was able to forgive himself for what he’d done - what he’d almost backslid into?

I thought so.


End file.
